wreg.com
“My heart. My heart just grieves for Tamia’s experience that night. It just grieves for it. It just seemed as if no one cared about Tamia’s life,” said Taylor’s cousin Devante Hill.
“We don’t know, one, if this was Tamia’s body, and secondly, if it is, we don’t know if she was dumped there or placed there, put there or did she wash up on the water,” Hill said.
“She is just a beacon of strength, a beacon of hope. She’s just a beacon of courage for a lot of people who don’t know what to do or say in this moment,” Hill said.
WREG learned DNA samples from Taylor’s mother were taken Monday morning to identify the body found in the river.
“We need to know what happened to Tamia, and someone needs to be held accountable for their negligence that night, whether its Memphis Riverboat, whether its the peers,” Hill said.
“I have a hard time calling these individuals friends. I have traveled all across the world with my friends and I cannot go to the bathroom yet alone, the bathroom inebriated without my cell phone, and my friends leave me when we came together,” Hill said.
“You cannot take people into the middle of the Mississippi River and have no cameras and if anything goes wrong no one sees it. It’s the perfect crime scene,” he said.
Tamia Taylor’s family awaits body ID, demands accountability
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Family members of Tamia Taylor are anxiously awaiting for officials to identify a woman’s body that was recovered from the Mississippi River over the weekend.…
I'm not sure how that would work? Would it not be then awful for some other family who gets told that sorry, we postponed the ID of your potential relative, because we'd rather ID this other person instead?
My best GUESS is that because the body was taken to the state lab in Little Rock that the county where the body was found lacks the resources to have its own lab. Eliza Fletcher was in Memphis, which is in Tennessee's most populous county, Shelby. I suspect that accounts for the timing difference in DNA confirmation. We don't know exactly what the family has been told. LE may feel fairly certain because of timing and size of body that it is Tamia and may or may not have passed that along to family. Or they may think it is someone else and also passed that along to the families involved. However, obtaining DNA from Tamia's mother would be a way to be 100 percent positive one way or the other. Plus, if this is not Tamia, they still need her mother's DNA. I'm from a county in Tennessee that uses a state lab, and yes the wait is longer.
True. While living in New Orleans, searches were conducted to find a man who fell overboard in the Mississippi. During the search two other bodies were found.
That's pretty disgraceful, to just leave her family hanging like that, and any others that could be waiting on an ID
I wasn’t implying they should prioritize her over other families who are waiting. Of course that would be disrespectful. I meant it should take priority over other more mundane, non-urgent activities, in the same way that Eliza was quickly identified.
I understand that an official identification has to be made based upon the DNA test. I'm just saying that an unofficial identification most likely has been done by investigators already, they just can't say until the DNA tests return.
If I am remembering correctly, there was a young missing black girl in West Memphis recently. Maybe that is playing a part in the delay?? I am uncertain where I saw that, but I think it may have been on this site?Body found in Miss. River identified as missing 21-year-old Tamia Taylor
The mother of 21-year-old Tamia Taylor has confirmed that the body that was found in the Mississippi River over the weekend is that of her missing daughter.www.actionnews5.com
The body was identified as that of a black woman
No, signs of blunt force trauma on one and gun shot to the other.
If it is her, I wonder if the family will file a law suit against the cruise company for low railings or some other safety feature missing? Although I do not think they are to blame and it is just an accident.
I wonder if the participants had to sign a waiver.
